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Posts Tagged ‘New Skills ready network’

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Learning From New Skills for Youth to Move Career Pathways Forward

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024

Advance CTE recently released Moving Career Pathways Forward: Learning From the New Skills for Youth Initiative, with support from JPMorgan Chase and in partnership with Education Strategy Group. The report shares the successes and challenges of six states as they sustained career pathways development after the conclusion of a major philanthropic investment and the coronavirus pandemic. The report also features recommendations from state leaders to move career pathways development forward. In this blog, Senior Research Associate Dr. Laura Maldonado provides highlights of lasting legacies and recommendations from the report. 

Overview

While receiving a major grant from a funder to support career pathways development is exciting, it is important to develop sustainable systems and processes while leveraging the funding to continue the work beyond the conclusion of the grant. New Skills for Youth (NSFY) was one of the earliest and most impactful philanthropy investments in career pathways and career readiness in recent history. Launched in 2016, and supported by JPMorgan Chase, NSFY was a $75 million, 5-year initiative to strengthen and expand high-quality career pathways for youth.1 Advance CTE, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Education Strategy Group served as the national partners in NSFY to transform career readiness education in 10 states across the United States. Ultimately, the grant concluded and states had to determine the transition of resources and supports to provide continuity of services.

As states and communities continue to prioritize career pathways policies and programs, it is useful to review insight from NSFY states around scale and sustainability given what they accomplished and what their systems look like today. Advance CTE’s vision for the future of Career Technical Education (CTE) calls on states to ensure each learner engages in a cohesive, flexible, and responsive career preparation ecosystem.2 Thinking upfront about the management of a grant end date helps keep learners at the forefront of high-quality career pathways. 

Background

To help address sustainability concerns, Advance CTE identified state leaders from six NSFY states who were willing to share how they sustained growth and progress of career pathways nearly 4 years after the end of the initiative. Moving Career Pathways Forward: Learning From the New Skills for Youth Initiative helps current leaders build on lessons learned and recommendations from past leaders. 

Lasting Legacies From the NSFY States

One feature of the report is the highlight of lasting legacies, or systems and structures started during NSFY that are still in existence today. 

Kentucky has improved training and support for CTE teachers, collaborates more with industry partners, and has seen changed attitudes regarding regional approaches.

NSFY enabled the Louisiana Department of Education to pursue cutting-edge entrepreneurial initiatives, such as wraparound supports, virtual work-based learning, and other activities that would have taken a long time to be approved for state funding. 

Massachusetts has a comprehensive approach to pathways, a common language, and additional capacity support at the district level. 

Cohesiveness of college and career readiness efforts in state programming and a strengthened commitment to equity continues to be a statewide focus in Ohio. 

Engaging with employers, using data to address equity gaps, and elevating career education to learners, families and key partners were key efforts sustained in Rhode Island. 

And finally, efforts launched in NSFY that have been sustained in Wisconsin include Regional Career Pathways and assessment practices for regional pathway work. 

Recommendations From the NSFY States

Another feature of the report is recommendations and action steps to sustain career pathways across multiple partner groups. These recommendations come from the learned experiences of state leaders and provide additional examples from states. 

State Agencies and Intermediaries

 

Local Leaders

Learners

Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group are currently helping six states and local sites think through the sustainability and scaling of career pathways systems after the conclusion of JPMorgan Chase’s current major career pathways initiative—New Skills ready network.5 The New Skills ready network sites are working to improve learner completion of high-quality career pathways as part of a 5-year initiative, which will end in 2025. 

Advance CTE, Education Strategy Group, ExcelinEd, JFF, and New America are also working with 11 states over two cohorts in another initiative focused on scale and sustainability—Launch: Equitable & Accelerated Pathways for All.6 Within Launch, sites are building sustainability plans to address long-standing barriers and achieve scale in their career pathways efforts. 

Starting or sustaining statewide initiatives with multiple agencies and partners is a major undertaking. The Moving Career Pathways Forward: Learning From the New Skills for Youth Initiative report helps state leaders use lessons learned from NSFY to replicate promising practices in their state for high-quality career pathways.

Additional Resources

Please visit Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center for additional resources about career pathways. 

Dr. Laura Maldonado, Senior Research Associate

By Jodi Langellotti in Advance CTE Resources, Publications
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New Skills ready network Highlight Blog: Career Connected Advising in the Middle Grades

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023

The New Skills ready network (NSrn) is part of JPMorgan Chase’s substantial portfolio in support of an inclusive economy and workforce. This five-year commitment is part of the New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity. With a dedication to building equitable career pathways, the New Skills ready network connects six sites —  Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee — with local partners with the intentionality necessary to build a strong workforce ecosystem for all learners.

For this highlight blog, Advance CTE Senior Policy Associate Haley Wing met with Erin Jacques, MyCAP District Coordinator, and Marsha Innis-Mitchell, Executive Director of Postsecondary Initiatives for Boston Public Schools to discuss career-connected advising in middle grades. Erin and Marsha are both partners of the New Skills ready network Boston, Massachusetts, project team.  

The Boston, Massachusetts project team for the New Skills ready network believes in a city where all young people can engage in high-quality career learning that supports exploration, informed decision-making and preparation for the future. The team aims to dramatically increase the number of Black, Latinx, special education, and English Learner students who participate in and persist through engaging, relevant, and equitable career pathways and are prepared to enter meaningful careers. 

 



 

Overview

Over the past three years, the Boston, Massachusetts, project team has been transforming systems to drive equitable education and career outcomes for all learners. The project team has achieved significant milestones in the development of high-quality, equitable career pathways including addressing structural and institutional barriers to equitable career pathways and creating a holistic and seamless advising system to support learners. In year three of the New Skills ready network initiative, the project team prioritized expanding access to coordinated, holistic and equitable college and career advising. The 2022-2023 school year was the first of college and career-connected advising in the middle-grades and project team members from Boston Public Schools shared how they leveraged cross-department collaboration, offered supports to identified priority schools for the rollout and lessons learned throughout the process.

Leveraging Cross-Department Collaboration to Support Expanded Access to Career-Connected Advising 

In expanding access to college and career advising, Boston Public School members of the initiative’s project team strengthened their implementation of the My Career and Academic Plan (MyCAP). MyCAP is a learner-centered, multi-year planning tool designed to provide learners with ongoing opportunities to plan for their academic, personal, social and career success. Additionally, because MyCAP is student-centered, there is a large focus on anti-bias and equity to inform, advise and mentor learners. This includes expanding learners’ thinking about what is possible and positioning them to move forward in ways they envision future success. 

Implementing MyCAP with fidelity across Boston Public Schools requires sustainable and deepened staff capacity at the district’s central office as well as at the school level. Marsha and Erin both support cultivating and maintaining strategic partnerships across the district to align with MyCAP priorities. The collaboration and partnerships during this first year of expanded access to middle-grade learners included leveraging family liaisons who support informing learners and families of opportunities within Boston Public Schools and activating counselor teams that support caseloads of learners in the middle grades. The project team also expanded its reach to include community partnerships that operate in the college and career areas to better serve middle-grade learners. The advantage of bringing these partnerships into the fold allowed greater support for learners with exposure to skills and experiences that support college and career readiness and success (see image). 

To actualize expanded access to MyCAP, the project team identified a cohort of schools with grade configurations in the middle grades (grades 6,7 and 8). The team then worked across departments within the school district to increase the capacity to deliver training, guidance and resources to the identified priority schools. Training for school-level staff includes step-by-step instruction on using the tool and leveraging the accompanying resources to draw connections between learners’ interests and college and career opportunities.

To support schools in their efforts, the district staff recommends schools leverage formalized MyCAP plans that articulate how schools will accomplish MyCAP implementation and the set of experiences they will provide for learners over the course of the school year. Due to the intentionality of the district leadership, plans include support systems like additional counselors pushing in, leveraging collaboration with partners and additional guidance from the district team to support the work.

Impact of Expanded Access to MyCAP

As a result of the Boston, Massachusetts project team expanding access to high-quality college and career advising through MyCAP, 45% of 7th-grade learners and 42% of 8th-grade learners in the identified priority schools have completed at least one MyCAP task in the first year of expansion. Additionally, the number of district and school-level staff that are being trained on MyCAP continues to increase; in the first year 150 staff were trained and over 200 individuals have been trained as of October 2023. The group of 200 includes staff representing all of the district’s secondary schools and a dozen of lower-elementary schools. 

The district team and school-level staff are also making greater connections with MyCAP to other bodies of work such as transition planning and special education efforts. MyCAP supports the development and implementation of efforts to support learners’ postsecondary readiness and transitions; these components are also in alignment with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Transitional planning is integral to IEPs and MyCAP is transition planning for learners.

Lessons Learned from Launching Expanded Access to MyCAP

Additional capacity building: A key component of the expansion of MyCAP includes additional capacity building. The project team explicitly highlighted that this work is not possible without a district-level staff member dedicated to serving and supporting school-level staff to implement MyCAP. Erin’s role allows the capacity to sit down with school-level staff to increase counselors’ leadership abilities and competencies. As mentioned earlier, the district provides resources to support this work, however, resources and guidance documents are only useful if there is a staff member to support walking through the planning and implementation process.

School counselor involvement is critical: At the school level, school counselors are needed to support the planning, collaboration and implementation of MyCAP. In schools where the expanded access efforts have been implemented, there is a counselor who has built their team within the school, trained their team and teachers, and informed administrators of the planning and implementation process. This is especially important considering scheduling within school buildings and ensuring that MyCAP is integrated into and across advisory blocks within schools.

Adequate training is essential to advocacy: In addition to better serving learners in their career and college planning, the project team has also noted the increased advocacy efforts of counselors within schools that are implementing expanded access to MyCAP. The project team has noticed when school-level counselors are adequately trained and supported, they take ownership of the implementation process and leverage their leadership to mobilize their peers. This can include accurately communicating the vision of MyCAP, identifying how and when it connects to other school-level staff’s work, offering support to leverage MyCAP and advocating for systems within the school that support learners’ postsecondary success. This is especially exciting to witness given there is no mandate to implement or leverage MyCAP in Boston Public Schools, and signals to the district that in the sea of competing priorities, school counselors, administrators and staff are identifying MyCAP as foundational to learners’ transitions to and through college and careers.

Replicating Expanded Access to College and Career Advising

Providing learners access to high-quality college and career advising is a critical component of supporting learners’ transitions, readiness and preparation for the workforce. Leaders who are interested in replicating the efforts of Boston Public Schools should:

Looking Ahead

As the project team looks forward, they plan to continue the momentum of expanded access to MyCAP and plan to bring in more schools with earlier grade bands like elementary schools in the district. As MyCAP training and implementation expands, the team continues to have a deep focus on equity, aligning inclusive education goals and activating MyCAP at points of transition within learners’ journey. 

To learn more about Individual Career and Academic Plans, read Implementing Individual Career and Academic Plans (ICAP) at Scale in the Learning that Works Resource Center. This brief highlights promising practices for ICAP implementation at the state and local levels in Colorado, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin and provides recommendations for further state and local work to scale ICAPs.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

Read our other New Skills ready network Highlight Blogs from 2023:

By Layla Alagic in CTE Without Limits
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Achieving Inclusive CTE: Early Achievements and Upcoming Opportunities to Support Inclusive CTE

Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

In 2022, Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group, through the New Skills ready network initiative, released the Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool (AICTE). This tool adds a new resource to the data toolbox for state and local CTE and career pathways leaders to assess learner group data. The goal-setting tool enables leaders to analyze CTE learner group data in comparison to the broader student population. The purpose of the tool is to support leaders with their efforts to recruit, engage and support underrepresented learner groups to increase access to high-quality Career Technical Education (CTE) programs and career pathways. 

Over the past six months, four states, Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana and Utah, have participated in a technical assistance cohort to leverage the AICTE Goal-Setting Tool to evaluate the inclusivity of their system and establish goals to improve equitable access and outcomes for learner populations in their states. The cohort of technical assistance included two workshop sessions to review the tool and its analyses; ongoing support and coaching calls with each state team to guide the use of the tool in their states; and two Communities of Practice sessions to share promising solutions and discuss shared challenges. The two states that completed the pilot of the Goal-Setting Tool, Colorado and South Carolina, were also invited to attend the Communities of Practice sessions.

Lessons Learned

Over the course of the technical assistance cohort, key themes and lessons learned emerged from the states using the Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool:

Continue reading for detailed information on the lessons learned and examples from the states who participated.

The Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool Supports Perkins Performance Indicators: The AICTE Goal-Setting Tool analyzes data for 11 indicators across all learner populations. This level of analysis includes gender, race and ethnicity and special populations (English learners, Migrant learners, Economically Disadvantaged and Learners with disabilities). The disaggregated design of the Goal-Setting Tool supports users in drilling down specific areas for improvement and support. Utah is utilizing the tool to support one of its Perkins performance indicators: nontraditional participation. With the help of the AICTE Goal-Setting Tool, the team will leverage the data analysis to identify areas where their state and local leaders can make a greater impact to increase nontraditional participation and understand if the adjusted performance targets the state has set are reasonable to achieve.

As the team works towards achieving its Perkins performance goals, the Utah team will also conduct a state-level analysis of nontraditional participation for multiple years to compare the data and identify any changes in the groups over time. Additionally, the state team plans to conduct training to support local leaders with the use of the Goal-Setting Tool and allow them to enter their own data to identify opportunities for a more inclusive CTE system. The team will provide this training to local CTE leaders during the winter months of 2023 and will align the Goal-Setting Tool with their Opportunity Gap Analysis workbook and data.

With the assistance of the Goal-Setting Tool, the team shared that the greatest benefit is having more insightful data analysis in conjunction with their Opportunity Gap Analysis. According to the team, using the tools together offers a greater understanding of the CTE system and areas where learners need to be recruited, supported or engaged. 

The Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool is a Strong Companion in the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment Process: One of the many use cases for the Goal-Setting Tool is the examination of equity and disaggregated learner performance data as part of the Perkins V Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA). The Goal-Setting Tool takes a deeper dive into the CTE continuum to identify priority areas for Perkins plans. The team in Indiana is taking full advantage of the Goal-Setting Tool with their CLNA process by planning to include training on the use of the goal-setting tool in their next round of Equity Labs. Equity Labs are regional sessions held across the state to share the importance of equity and inclusivity in CTE programs and career pathways. 

The Goal-Setting Tool will support Indiana’s CLNA process by providing a tool to facilitate a deep dive into each district’s data. The state team plans to supply regional and district CTE leaders with the Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool to analyze data, set a goal to increase equity and inclusivity and implement a practical strategy to achieve the goal. 

To use the Goal-Setting Tool to its full potential in Indiana’s CLNA process, the team plans to provide local CTE leaders with ongoing support and opportunities for follow-up to ensure locals are leveraging root-cause analysis to better understand data trends. The state plans to leverage the tool for continuous monitoring of the practical strategies and interventions deployed to create a more equitable and inclusive CTE system.

The Achieving Inclusive Goal-Setting Tool Supports Data Tools Alignment: Each state selected to participate in the pilot and technical assistance cohort previously completed the Opportunity Gap Analysis Train-the-Trainer workshop, a workshop that prepares CTE leaders to provide comprehensive training on the importance of equitable access to high-quality CTE, demonstrates how to conduct a percentage point gap analysis to identify gaps among learner groups including race and ethnicity, gender and special populations and conducting a root-cause analysis to understand the implications on the data.

The AICTE Goal-Setting Tool is the next phase of data analysis work to support inclusive and equitable CTE systems: analyzing the current representation of learners in CTE programs compared to the learners that could be engaged, recruited and/or supported in CTE and setting goals to achieve a more equitable system. 

While these tools complement each other in their analyses and findings, participants using the tools identified the importance and value of ensuring the two tools work together and clearly communicating the alignment of the tools to their local-level CTE leaders and practitioners. Colorado is making progress leveraging both tools with their local-level CTE leaders and practitioners. To support the local-level use of the tools, the Colorado state agency provided the Opportunity Gap Analysis dashboard to their local-level teams. Then it provided guidance on using the AICTE Goal-Setting Tool. By leveraging the two tools together, locals were able to identify opportunity gaps in CTE enrollment and then further drill down on equitable access and inclusivity in every stage of the CTE continuum across specific CTE programs using CIP code-level data. Conducting analysis with CIP code-level data allows districts within a state an opportunity to identify where they have gaps. As districts continue to leverage both tools, they can work collaboratively with industry partners to expand access to CTE career pathway programs and work-based learning opportunities. 

To ensure alignment between the tools, the Colorado team launched both tools to every district and consortia to review regional data to account for small n-sizes. The Colorado team has held several sessions on data quality and interpreting the data dashboards. These sessions include guidance and support to identify trends in the data. The state team continues to offer support sessions and office hours to discuss all data-related issues.

As the team looks ahead, they plan to leverage the two tools in their Perkins state plan revisions. The team will begin regional meetings for the Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment (CLNA) to gather input for the state plan to ensure it includes robust and diverse perspectives especially when setting state performance targets. The state team will set Perkins performance targets leveraging both the Opportunity Gap Analysis dashboard and the AICTE Goal-Setting Tool. 

Looking Ahead

The Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool is a strong data analysis tool for CTE leaders and Advance CTE is committed to supporting states with the use of the tool to achieve more inclusive and equitable CTE systems. In the coming months, Advance CTE will launch a second round of technical assistance to guide participants through the use of the tool, provide individualized coaching and support for states using the tool and elevate the promising approaches and successes from the use of the tool. To learn more about this cohort of technical assistance and apply, please visit this form. 

If you have any questions about the Achieving Inclusive CTE Goal-Setting Tool or the upcoming technical assistance cohort, please contact Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE at [email protected]. 

By Layla Alagic in Achieving Equitable and Inclusive CTE, Resources
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New Skills ready network Highlight Blog: Leveraging Learner Voice to Strengthen Career Pathways

Wednesday, July 26th, 2023

The New Skills ready network (NSrn) is part of JPMorgan Chase’s substantial portfolio in support of an inclusive economy and workforce. This five-year commitment is part of the New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity. With a dedication to building equitable career pathways, the New Skills ready network connects six sites —  Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee — with local partners with the intentionality necessary to build a strong workforce ecosystem for all learners.

Denver, Colorado’s vision for the NSrn initiative, aims to “dramatically increase the number and diversity of students who complete selected high-quality career pathways that start in high school, continue into and through higher education, and lead to good jobs in Denver’s labor market.”

Over the past three years, the project team has achieved significant milestones in the development of high-quality, equitable career pathways including building a shared data framework, aligning work-based learning opportunities within high-quality career pathways and enhancing the learner experience when transitioning from secondary to postsecondary institutions. Under the leadership of the site lead, The Attainment Network, the project team leverages strategic cross-sector partnerships while centering equity and learner voice to enhance and improve their career pathways work. 

A critical component of the Denver, Colorado, site work includes centering and leveraging the voices of learners to understand their experiences, barriers and opportunities and shaping career pathways aligned with their needs.In April 2023, The Attainment Network held their second annual Learner Voice Symposium which brought together an audience of educators, employers and policymakers to hear directly from Colorado learners what they seek in career-connected pathways and how they define success.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate, Advance CTE, interviewed Rana Tarkenton, Chief Operating Officer, The Attainment Network to discuss the importance of leveraging learner voice in career pathways and how others might replicate their efforts to meaningfully engage learners in the design and implementation of career pathways.

Overview of the Learner Voice Symposium Event

The purpose of the Learner Voice Symposium is to elevate highlights from learners’ diverse perspectives and backgrounds and provide actionable insights to improve and expand pathways for all learners. The Symposium serves as a reminder to partners of the reason why they engage in this work and elevates the voices of learners who are not always invited to the table when developing and implementing career pathways. Learners, who are not simply the receivers of the work of career pathways, but rather the experts in their experiences, provide critical feedback to leaders. 

The Symposium fills a gap in the career preparation ecosystem in Colorado; leaders developing career-connected pathways are continuously striving to improve the system and learners are disconnected from the leaders who need to hear their voices most. The Attainment Network identified this gap and provides career pathway partners the space to listen to and reflect learner voices in their work in the form of The Symposium. 

The Symposium held virtually on Zoom, included a keynote speaker who is a practitioner that engages with learners frequently and specializes in community engagement, and breakout sessions that are co-led by learners who are compensated for their time and expertise. The Symposium is attended by a wide audience including practitioners in secondary and postsecondary education, college and career advisors, state agency providers, policymakers and employer partners.  

Participants have the opportunity to attend breakout sessions of their choosing covering topics like authentic youth engagement in career pathways, immigrant and undocumented learner experiences, non-traditional learners and pathways and more. Presenting organizations that support the sessions include Ednium, The San Luis Valley Boys & Girls Clubs, Emily Griffith Technical College, MSU Denver and more.

All of the information shared during The Learner Voice Symposium is centered on elevating the experiences of learners and incorporating their voices in the development of career-connected pathways. At the close of The Symposium, The Attainment Network announced their Learner Voice Grants that organizations and institutions can apply for to support and enhance their meaningful learner engagement efforts. 

Impact of The Learner Voice Symposium on the New Skills ready network 

The learner engagement in The Learner Voice Symposium supports the Denver, Colorado, New Skills ready network team in their communications strategies as they develop materials and messaging to better connect learners and families to career-connected pathway opportunities. Additionally, Denver Public Schools (DPS), a secondary partner for the New Skills ready network site, and the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) are two of the grantees for the Learner Voice Grant. DPS and CDHE leverage the grant funding to support their learner engagement work in the development of local and state-level career pathways. 

With more than 175 attendees of The Symposium, The Attainment Network models meaningful learner engagement for its system-wide network. The Network, being a statewide intermediary, supports strengthening the career pathway ecosystem and strengthens relationships with system partnerships that impact learners. 

Further, the Denver, Colorado, project team also elevates the voices and feedback from learners in state-level policy. The Attainment Network, alongside the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Community College System, led an effort to design, collect, and report on community input to inform the HB22-1215 Secondary, Postsecondary and Work-Based Learning Integration Task Force (Study of Expanding High School Programs).

Recommendations delivered to the Task Force focus on equitable access to and successful expansion of high school programs across all regions of Colorado with a focus on traditionally underserved populations and those who have not accessed relevant programming in their educational experience. The discovery process of community feedback collection leveraged community organizations, educational organizations, and local partnerships.

Replicating Meaningful Learner Engagement

Leveraging learners’ input and feedback in the development of career pathways, CTE programs and policies is a valuable component of program improvement. Leaders who are interested in replicating The Learner Voice Symposium should prioritize including learners whose voices are historically underrepresented, leveraging partners who can support recruiting learners to bring them to the table and co-creating the event with partners and learners to ensure the content fills the needs for the ecosystem.

The Attainment Network engages in the planning and execution of The Symposium with an equity lens to ensure a diverse representation of learners, speakers and attendees. The Network also backward plans by prioritizing the outcomes they want the event to achieve from the start of the planning process to ensure there are sessions with meaningful outcomes and takeaways for attendees. 

The planning and execution of an event of this size includes a lot of logistics and leaders should consider adequate staffing, preparation that helps to keep audiences engaged and ensuring the videos and notes from the event are accessible once the event is over. The addition of a visual scribe enhances the experience for attendees throughout the session, as well as providing engaging artifacts to further share learnings after the event and marketing for future events. 

Looking Ahead

As The Attainment Network enters year four of the New Skills ready network, the project team is working towards holding more learner and community engagement events to continue the work of leveraging learner voices, input and feedback in the design and delivery of career pathways. The Network team is currently working on analyzing themes from The Learner Voice Symposium to inform the design of their Colorado Pathways Conference on September 19 – 20. The two-day conference will focus on pathways-focused education-to-workforce systems across the state and country. 

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

 

By Jodi Langellotti in CTE Without Limits
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Enhanced Collaboration Towards Implementation of High-Quality Career Pathways in Year Three of the New Skills ready network

Tuesday, July 11th, 2023

Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group (ESG) recently released an annual report and site snapshots for year three of the New Skills ready network initiative. The five-year initiative, part of JPMorgan Chase’s $350 million global New Skills at Work program and $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity, aims to improve student completion of high-quality, equitable career pathways to gain skills needed for the future of work, particularly among learners of color and other historically marginalized learners. 

As a partner in the New Skills ready network initiative, Advance CTE elevates the successes and lessons learned across the six sites as they work towards the implementation of high-quality, equitable career pathways. Over the course of the three years of the initiative, sites have made significant progress in the development and implementation of career pathways from defining the core elements of high-quality career pathways to improving the access and equity of high-quality career pathways. The policy and programmatic changes adopted across the six sites in the initiative are promising approaches and strategies that can be leveraged in other states and areas to enhance the design, delivery and implementation of high-quality, equitable career pathways.

Throughout year three of the New Skills ready network initiative, several key priorities emerged as trends for the six sites:

Across each key priority area, sites have leveraged cross-sector networks and partnerships to deploy promising practices that support their sites with the successful development and implementation of high-quality career pathways that meet the needs of learners and industry. Examples of achievement across the sites include the Columbus, Ohio, site leveraging an employer toolkit, created by the Ohio Department of Education, to help industry partners better understand the opportunities and challenges associated with work-based learning. 

The Indianapolis, Indiana, site expanded learner access to college and career advising by developing resources and supports for learners and finalizing frameworks that align career advising practices. For example, postsecondary partners published program maps for learners participating in agreements between Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Ivy Tech Community College. 

The Nashville, Tennessee, team has supported increased access to career pathways in HVAC and IT by engaging postsecondary partners like the Tennessee College of Applied Technology – Nashville (TCAT-Nashville). The engagement with TCAT-Nashville has increased learner participation and interest in dual enrollment, and the site now has more than 300 learners enrolled in these opportunities.

Sites like Boston, Massachusetts, and Dallas, Texas, are expanding access to career exploration, advising and high-quality career pathways opportunities to middle grades learners. In year three, the Boston, Massachusetts, team expanded the rollout of their My Career and Academic Plan to middle grades learners to better prepare learners for career pathways, dual enrollment and early college experiences. The Dallas, Texas, team is currently designing a cybersecurity career pathway that will connect all partner institutions with learners and provide lab experiences at the University of North Texas – Dallas. Learners in Dallas, Texas, will be exposed to this high-wage, high-demand career pathway as early as middle school with opportunities to earn credentials. 

Project team partners in Denver, Colorado, are improving the learner experience when transitioning from secondary to postsecondary institutions. In year three, the site lead, The Attainment Network, supported secondary and postsecondary institutions with solutions to longstanding challenges in learner transitions including lack of data sharing, erroneous dual enrollment rosters and incorrect schedules for learners. The institutions are now leveraging IT automation to ensure each institution has access to timely information on learners’ schedules, enrollments and more. 

In addition to diving more into the aforementioned exciting developments, the site snapshots and year three annual report preview the work for year four in the New Skills ready network initiative. Each site has ambitious goals for year four including exploring new pathways sectors, engaging families and learners in the design and implementation of career pathways, sustaining and scaling career pathways as sites near year five of the initiative and more. 

Visit Advance CTE’s New Skills ready network series page to read the full annual report and a snapshot of each site’s innovative partnerships and early accomplishments across the four project priorities. Our New Skills ready network collection page provides additional resources for strengthening career pathways.

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Publications
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New Skills ready network highlight: Interview with JPMorgan Chase Vice President Deshaun Mars

Wednesday, June 7th, 2023

The New Skills ready network is part of JPMorgan Chase’s (JPMC) substantial portfolio in support of an inclusive economy and workforce. This five year commitment is part of the New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity. With dedication to building equitable career pathways, the New Skills ready network connects six sites —  Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee — with local partners with the intentionality necessary to build a strong workforce ecosystem for all learners. 

As part of ongoing blog topics providing updates on this initiative, Deshaun Mars, Vice President, Global Philanthropy (Job Skills,) and Brice Thomas, Policy Associate engaged in a discussion to highlight JPMC’s view of the initiative and how this work advances JPMC’s philanthropic portfolio and ultimately building high-quality local and state career pathway systems. 

How does the work being done in the initiative support the rest of JPMC’s Global Ready Initiative (GCRI) job, skills, and philanthropy portfolio? 

As a firm, we are focused on creating a more equitable labor market, and we support policy solutions, organizations and initiatives that help upskill and train the workforce of today for future jobs.

More specifically, our Global Career Readiness Initiative prepares young people, particularly those from historically underserved backgrounds, to build skills and enter the labor force through quality jobs.  

This investment highlights the importance of intentional engagement between the education (K-12/higher ed) and business/employer communities to support students and arm them with the resources, skills and access to meaningful career pathways to help power the economy and workforce of the future.  

How do you see JPMC leveraging the work being developed through the initiative? 

Businesses are grappling with a challenging labor market – there are more job openings than qualified people to fill the roles. This investment helps fill that gap by increasing access to skills, training and resources for young people so they are better prepared to enter the labor force with the skills employers need most.  

We are learning how deep cross-sector relationships and partnerships can support young people, communities, and business outcomes. Within our own workforce, we are applying these same principles to transform how we prepare people to compete for well-paying jobs and successful careers.  

With multiple sites across the world, we’re able to share best practices and lessons learned to bolster engagement and strengthen the investment.  

How does JPMC plan to continue supporting the sites? 

Intentional collaboration and partnerships are key to the ongoing support of these sites. We are connecting our local market leaders and the firm’s work across other bodies of work to these partners to help them scale, build capacity and think long-term.  

Since we are past the midpoint of this initiative, what do you hope to see from the participating sites? 

Continue investing in building out the long-term infrastructure of career pathways so this work is not dependent on one funder.

As sites progress on implementation and sustainability, what encouragement would you share in their continued progress? 

We understand how difficult this work is. That is why we made a longer-term investment so our sites have the time to put the infrastructure in place to support and build the local economies of the future. 

The New Skills ready network has also supported the creation of several publications and resources designed to engage and support the field. Advance CTE’s Learning that Works Resource Center houses hundreds of reports, briefs and toolkits designed to advance high-quality CTE for our members. The State Work-Based Learning Innovation Tracker, for instance, compiles the work-based learning toolkits from all 50 states to serve as up-to-date models of best practices. Our latest resource from this initiative, the Credit for Prior Learning Messaging Toolkit, provides effective messages targeted to key audiences and strategies for dissemination to increase participation in Credit for Prior Learning among adult learners. 

JPMC, New Skills ready network, and Advance CTE remain committed to helping all learners have access to high-quality career pathways. 

Brice Thomas, Policy Associate

By Layla Alagic in Achieving Equitable and Inclusive CTE
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New Skills ready network Site Highlight Blog: Nashville Pilot Projects

Monday, February 13th, 2023

This post is part of a blog series highlighting promising practices from the New Skills ready network (NSrn), an initiative of JPMorgan Chase & Co. For more information about the initiative, please see the bottom of this post.

The Nashville, Tennessee site of the New Skills ready network (NSrn) is focused on implementing best practices to strengthen implementation of the funding across the initiative. Advance CTE State Policy Manager Dr. Tunisha Hobson interviewed Daryl Curry, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce Director of Education and Workforce Partnerships, and Jennifer McFerron, Vice President of Education and Talent Development, about their pilot project initiative. This initiative was pursued to ensure learners have transparent secondary and postsecondary pathways that align to one another and high-demand, high-wage careers that meet labor market needs; enhance learning by defining and implementing best practice work-based learning models and student experiences in secondary and postsecondary; and, increasing the number of historically underrepresented students who successfully enroll and persist in postsecondary education. 

Overview of the Pilot Projects 

The guiding team of the Nashville site led a Design Sprint process with the support of a consulting firm to develop a strategy for distributing funding across the initiative, with the foundation of the four priorities of the New Skills ready network serving as a guiding light, particularly bolstering access to high-quality career pathways for learners of marginalized communities. Out of that process emerged a proposal that would distribute up to $10,000 to individual pilot projects that engage both Metro Nashville Public Schools and  two-year and/or four-year postsecondary partners. The collaborative approach to the pilot project process allows an opportunity to continuously refine norms while providing greater depth to the initiative. 

The eight pilot projects are led by a variety of stakeholders in the Nashville site team with implementation support from  College and Career Readiness Coaches employed by the city in year two of this work who bolster existing career advising and transition supports. Additionally, an increased partnership between the guiding team and Middle Tennessee State University as the four-year partner was a critical component of success. 

Jennifer McFerron stated, “the pilots are an area where our guiding team drove the strategy and implementation plan for these projects. They indicated that what our partners really needed was time and space for deep collaboration and support to identify what they need and to succeed in getting there.”

Pilot Project Highlights 

The projects were designed to meet partner needs for effective collaboration and implementation vital to the success of the NSrn initiative. Of the eight pilot projects, there are four that have significantly expanded the success of the initiative: Healthcare Futures, IT Apprenticeships, Work-Based Learning Family Career Launch and You Choose/Tú Escoges. These projects direct resources in various ways to support learner development in career pathways and their families. 

From Pilot Projects to Sustainability 

Darryl Curry stated, “The Design Sprint was great in that it not only provided additional resources, but also gave our partners an opportunity to dream of the possibilities together. With the successes that we have seen within the pilot projects, the challenge going forward will be sustaining and strengthening those relationships, all the while building on and embedding these offerings and opportunities into how we support both our students and families.”

The relationships developed among the Nashville site guiding team since 2021 allowed for the pilot projects to be both strategic and sustainable beyond the duration of the NSrn initiative. Although the projects are different in scope, the intentional design cultivated employer partnerships, family engagement and support of actualizing durable skills for learners. In order to sustain multiple pilot projects, three actionable steps should be taken: continue to refine norms and processes, value support given by convenors and facilitators experienced in providing guidance on design sprints such as these pilot projects, and inviting the perspectives of employer and community partners. 

Learn more about Nashville’s progress in the New Skills ready network initiative in their 2021-2022 site snapshot.  

Dr. Tunisha Hobson, State Policy Manager 

By Jodi Langellotti in Public Policy
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Midpoint Highlights of the New Skills ready network

Monday, October 31st, 2022

In February 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced its New Skills ready network initiative, which bolsters the firm’s efforts to support an inclusive economic recovery. This effort is part of both their $350 million, five-year New Skills at Work initiative to prepare people for the future of work and their $30 billion commitment to advance racial equity. 

While there was a lot of excitement – and some uncertainty – about how exactly the work would unfold, we had no idea that, in just a few short weeks after the launch, the world would change as we knew it. Plans of in-person leadership team meetings, extended needs assessments that included focus groups of learners, industry partners and other key stakeholders, and network-wide convenings were all put on hold or adjusted due to the pandemic. 

While the ramp up may have slowed down and plans evolved, what never changed was the commitment of the six sites, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Advance CTE and our national partner, Education Strategy Group (ESG) to the ultimate vision of this initiative – to dramatically increase equitable access to and success in high-quality career pathways and experiences that lead to good jobs for all learners across these communities. This became even more important as the pandemic laid bare the deep and abiding inequities in our education system, workforce and society, particularly for learners and communities of color. 

We are now two-and-a-half years into the five-year initiative and there is a lot to celebrate! New Skills ready network is a bold and audacious initiative that aims to achieve both systems change at the ecosystem level while also improving programmatic opportunities for learners and industry partners in real time. It is no easy feat to build a career preparation ecosystem that engages and brings along K-12 districts, two- and four-year institutions, intermediaries, state agencies and industry partners – while also implementing new pathways, advising structures and other critical programmatic improvements at the school and institutional level. 

So what have we learned?

For more on site-specific progress, check out the:

Kate Kreamer, Deputy Executive Director

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
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New Resource: Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways

Wednesday, October 5th, 2022

Without Limits: A Shared Vision for the Future of Career Technical Education (CTE Without Limits) calls on leaders to ensure that each learner feels welcome in, is supported by and has the means to succeed in the career preparation ecosystem. One avenue Advance CTE is utilizing to realize this vision is  the New Skills ready network, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. funded initiative which draws on cross-sector partnerships in six cities composed of state, regional and local partners. Building flexible and responsive career pathways systems at each level requires leaders to provide meaningful and ongoing mechanisms for elevating learner voice, and the voices of learners’ families and communities, to share their unique experiences and have direct and ongoing input into the design and delivery of career pathways.

As state leaders continue to assess and adjust program throughout the career pathways continuum, including CTE, steps should be taken too identify the full scope of institutional barriers in policies and programs, develop learner-centric programs and interventions and build trust with marginalized learners and communities to ensure their voices and perspectives are brought to the forefront of decisions. 

In support of this effort, Advance CTE’s new brief, Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways,  includes five strategies as well as actions, tools and resources leaders can leverage to effectively and meaningfully engage families in every stage of career pathways development. 

This resource details the challenges and opportunities associated with family engagement and provides promising approaches to comprehensive family engagement practices. Some examples of promising approaches and strategies that are meaningfully engaging families include:

Read about more promising examples and five implementation strategies in Elevating Family Voice in Career Pathways  For more resources on developing high-quality career pathways, please visit the New Skills ready network series page in the Learning that Works Resource Center .

Haley Wing, Senior Policy Associate

By Stacy Whitehouse in Publications
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New Skills ready network Site Highlight: Cultivating Strong State-Local Partnerships in Indianapolis, Indiana

Tuesday, October 4th, 2022

This post is part of a blog series highlighting promising practices from the New Skills ready network, an initiative of JPMorgan Chase & Co. For more information about the initiative, please see the bottom of this post.

For this post, Senior Policy Associate Dan Hinderliter interviewed Indiana State CTE Director Anthony Harl and Ascend Indiana Vice President and Co-founder Stephanie Bothun about driving intentional connections between state and local partners. In Indiana, the Office of Career and Technical Education (CTE) is embedded in the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet (GWC), which serves as the state’s workforce board. Ascend Indiana (Ascend) is an initiative of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership and acts as a non-profit talent and workforce development intermediary connecting education and industry.

Building Systems Around Common Goals

One major component of the New Skills ready network is a focus on systems-level change involving a variety of stakeholders at both the state and local levels. The Office of CTE in Indiana naturally sits at the intersection of education and work, but the creation of the GWC in 2018 and the subsequent move of the Office of CTE underneath the umbrella of the GWC further allowed the Office of CTE to have a foot in the talent development space and a foot in education. This change spurred many of the partnership conversations that may not have sparked otherwise. The New Skills ready network subsequently sparked an official partnership between the Office of CTE and more local partners, like Ascend. 

While state-level initiatives were designed to be relatively independent, both the Indiana Office of CTE and Ascend were clear that participation in and development of these initiatives were about building a larger ecosystem to create linkages and build relationships that support young people on their education and career path. Though Ascend and the Office of CTE did not have an initial objective of an intentional partnership, they quickly connected over a shared understanding of a core mission – that all young people in Indiana, especially those from underrepresented and underserved populations, have access to the skills and pathways that allow them to get to postsecondary or in-demand training opportunities, ultimately as a route to the career they want.

Review of Indianapolis outcomes data revealed further CTE completion and postsecondary attainment gaps that disproportionately affect Latinx and Black learners, illustrating specific needs in the Indianapolis community that Bothun, Harl, and other New Skills ready network team members knew needed to be addressed.

This mutual touchstone allows for open and regular conversations that build between and across initiatives. In turn, this creates a connection, coordination, and cohesion between stakeholders working towards this similar goal and objective. Because partners are often the same on different state initiatives, conversations from one initiative carry across other conversations. The trust and goodwill built through collective work toward common goals allows each initiative and project to be successful as each partner recognizes the commitment each other partner has toward the overarching goal. 

“It’s about a web of connections and networking – a really passionate group of individuals that are all trying to, through their own little niche, just make things better for Indiana.” – Anthony Harl, State CTE Director, Indiana Governor’s Workforce Cabinet

Collaborative Problem-Solving 

Since this initial partnership developed through the New Skills ready network, Ascend and the Office of CTE have collaborated on quite a few other initiatives to solve specific problems connected to this core mission. Ascend  was already building out programs around modern youth apprenticeship; as a result of existing work and new relationships, Ascend was able to connect directly to statewide apprenticeship initiatives and help support whole-scale progress at the state level. Ascend also now helps organize and collaborate with the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet on a statewide youth apprenticeship community of practice, initiatives around career advising, and on federal Department of Labor grants. They have also previously collaborated on a state-wide subcommittee to provide recommendations to support work-based learning.

Both local and state leaders realize that while individual challenges of overhauling career pathways, improving equity in CTE programs, or creating statewide modern youth apprenticeship programs might be overwhelming, collaborations between partner levels allow teams to tackle issues collectively. As a naturally positioned convener of these groups, the Office of CTE can regularly help inform on who is best positioned to take on what work across the state. Because of their long-standing role in education and workforce development, the state can also provide historical context to many of the challenges, including what work has been tried before and what stakeholders had previously been consulted. The GWC also has a more comprehensive understanding of what work is in whose locus of control including what policy or funding levers can be activated or who can best be mobilized to take on specific workstreams and can provide insight into scalability and feasibility for larger scale initiatives. 

“We’ve rallied to this point in our community, we all know the problems are too big for anybody to solve individually. And it’s really been such a powerful motivator, I think for all of us to say, ‘What are all the ways we’re collectively tackling these issues, maybe from slightly different lenses?’” -Stephanie Bothun, Ascend Indiana

On the other hand, local groups like Ascend can provide specific insight into implementation, including what works well in a pilot, what specific resources might need to be developed or what unforeseen challenges are arising. This interplay allows for expanded collaboration around all areas and facilitates progress that would not otherwise have been possible independently.

Successful Strategies and Lessons Learned

As part of the conversation, Bothun and Harl shared a few key strategies for developing and maintaining the partnerships and communicated some takeaways for other states and local partners working to build better partnerships of their own:

Dan Hinderliter, Senior Policy Associate

About the Blog Series

In 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. launched the New Skills ready network across six domestic sites to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways with a focus on collaboration and equity. As a national partner in the New Skills ready network, Advance CTE strives to elevate the role of state capacity and resources in advancing project priorities and gain a unique perspective on promising practices to strengthen state-local partnerships across the country. 

This blog post continues a series that highlights innovative tools and initiatives produced across Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee, that advance the initiative’s four key priorities and serve as a guide for state leaders in their work to create cohesive, flexible and responsive career pathways. 

For more information about the New Skills ready network, please visit our Learning that Works Resource Center.

 

 

By Stacy Whitehouse in Uncategorized
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